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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: as that Boston gentleman: but too many English used to be socially
brutal--quite as much so to each other as to us, or any one. One should
bear that in mind. I know of nothing more English in its way than what
Eton answered to Beaumont (I think) when Beaumont sent a challenge to
play cricket: "Harrow we know, and Rugby we have heard of. But who are
you?"
That sort of thing belongs rather to the Palmerston days than to these;
belongs to days that were nearer in spirit to the Waterloo of 1815, which
a haughty England won, than to the Waterloo of 1914-18, which a humbler
England so nearly lost.
Turn we next the other way for a look at ourselves. An American lady who
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